In wiper blades with a spring-action support element, the support element is intended to guarantee as even a distribution of wiper blade pressure onto the windshield issued from the wiper arm as possible, and over the entire wipe field swept by the wiper blade. By appropriately bending the un-loaded support element into shape—the unloaded state being when only the two ends of the wiper blade sit against the windshield—the ends of the wiper strip, which sits completely against the windshield when the wiper blade is in operation, are pushed toward the windshield by the loaded support element, even if the radii of curvature of spherically curved vehicle windshields change with the wiper blade position. The curvature of the wiper blade must therefore be somewhat greater than the maximum curvature measured within the wipe field on the windshield to be wiped. This is because during wiping, the wiper strip, or its wiping lip that sits against the windshield, must be continuously pressed against the windshield with a specific force. The support element thus replaces the expensive stirrup design with two flexible rails located in the wiper strip, as is practiced in conventional wiper blades (DE-OS 15 05 257) since the support element provides the necessary cross-stiffening of the elastic rubber wiper strip in addition to providing a distribution of pressure. Specifically, in the known wiper blade the contact force directed toward the windshield that is exerted by a wiper arm onto a main stirrup is conveyed to two claw-like stirrups and distributed from these onto the elastic rubber wiper strip via four claws. The two flexible rails of this wiper blade mainly provide a cross-stiffening of the wiper strip between the claws when the wiper blade is pushed across the windshield perpendicular to its longitudinal length.